Berlin's massive Love Parade dance music festival is likely to go ahead after a city court rejected legal action to stop it because of noise levels.

The festival has attracted more than a million bizarrely-clad revellers to Berlin in past years.

But after 13 years, a Berlin resident took legal action to stop this year's parade on 13 July, saying deafening techno music broke the city's noise pollution laws.

The Love Parade has international appeal

Rejecting the legal action, the court said in a statement: "The Love Parade remains of considerable touristic and cultural importance for Berlin.

"The exception to the noise ordinance is in accordance with a special agreement."

Other Berlin residents have complained about damage and litter in the city's showpiece Tiergarten park.

After extensive argument, the parade's organisers lost the right last year to class the event as a political demonstration, which means the city authorities no longer meet the cost of tidying up.

Last year's parade suffered after it was pushed back a week because of an environmental demonstration.

Economy boost

The event lost DM1.5m (�467,000) after sponsors pulled out amid the confusion over whether it would take place at all.

Attendance was down from 1.3 million in 2000 to 800,000 last year, but the mess generated still cost more than �300,000 to clear up.

But the city authorities are still believed to be committed to the future of the festival, which massively boosts the local economy and has large international appeal.

During last year's parade DJs on 50 "techno wagons" made their way along 17 June Avenue from the Brandenburg Gate to the Victory monument.

The parade sparked a British counterpart in Leeds in 2000, although a planned follow-up in Newcastle last year was cancelled at a week's notice over transport and safety fears.